I retired a couple of years ago and I am finally in a position to where I can MD. I am looking for ideas regarding places to hunt. Not the parks, playgrounds or vacant lots. I live in Wyoming (Cheyenne to exact). We are famous for our rodeo and Calvary Base (1867 or so). Your thoughts and ideas on overlooked areas. For instance I did do so research and found that potentially there were 2 old drives located here almost 30 years ago. I do have access to the Wy state archives..... Where should I start and what should I look for regarding overlooked spots??
Thanks, Chris
When you go to hit the history books on your area (or key word searches and websites about history in your area), try to hone in on the obscure sources. Not the coffee-table "Sunset home and garden tourist ghost towns" type books. Not the obvious historic plaque type spots. Not the obvious easy-to-research type places (abandoned picnic sites, ghost towns, stage stops, etc...). Instead, try to find obscure sources, that don't appear to be talked about elsewhere. Because odds are, if it's "easy", then ... doh .... so-too has other md'rs already thought of it.
Most of the best spots I have hit were obscure references like this. Like a singular pamphlet from a cities "100 yr. anniversary" brochure, that mentioned a picnic spot in the nearby foothills. The brochure was just for a handout by some elderly fellow at that 1976 "100 yr." city anniversary, to hand out to bank patrons at that time. And a singular copy of that pass-out made it into the papers files in our local library, where I stumbled across it in the 1990s. No other mention made of this anywhere (go figure, it's only a town of a few thousand, and was probably only 700-ish at the turn-of-century). And even to find the exact location, I had to talk to elderly people in their 90s at that time, who could remember heading out in horse-&-buggy (or model T's) for each 4th of July, etc... to this spot. Not mentioned anywhere else, except that obscure happen-chance citation. We pulled about 150 coins from that spot, the NEWEST of which was mid 1920s
Same for stage stops, adobe sites, etc.... Same type psychology. Not that I wouldn't try "obvious" spots, but .... I get more excited when it appears to be obscure un-known-to-others info.
